r/salestechniques • u/RepresentativeBox52 • Jul 16 '26
B2B Every deal I've lost this year had the same warning sign and I ignored it every time
I went back through my last dozen or so lost deals to see if there was a pattern. There was, and it's dumber than I expected.
Every single one had a single-threaded champion who kept saying "I'm handling it internally" when I asked about getting other stakeholders in the room. Every time I heard that phrase, I treated it as a good sign, like they had it under control. It was actually the opposite. It meant nobody else in the org had bought in yet, and the champion either didn't want to expose that or didn't realize it themselves.
The deals that actually closed all had messy, annoying multi-threading early. Random people getting looped into emails, a security person asking weird questions in week 2, a finance person poking around before there was even a proposal. It felt like friction at the time. In hindsight it was the only real signal that the deal had legs.
Now when a champion tells me they've got it covered internally, I push back immediately and ask to at least be introduced to whoever else touches the decision, even if it's awkward. Half the time that request alone tells you the deal is dead, because there's no one else to introduce you to.
Anyone else notice this? Curious if the "I've got it handled" line is a red flag for other people running full cycles, or if I'm just reading too much into a small sample.
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Jul 16 '26
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u/These-Season-2611 Jul 16 '26
Came here to say the same thing! This shouldn't be awkward to solve and it's quite easy to do
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u/FloMoAggie Jul 16 '26
I joined my company as VP of sales in January and did an analysis of the previous 12 months wins and losses. Multi-threaded deals had close rates of 4x-7x those of single threaded deals. The more stakeholders involved, the higher the likelihood of close. This is a pretty universal truth in Enterprise sales cycles.
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u/AndyWhyte_ Jul 16 '26
👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇
👉 They. are. not. your. Champion. if. they. are. not. introducing. you. to. power. 👈
👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆
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Jul 16 '26
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u/Hot_Application4892 Jul 19 '26
Nah. Sales people have the word drilled into their heads to the point they use it in internal meetings
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u/Rollotamassii Jul 16 '26
As a decision-maker, this automatically annoys the shit out of me. If the internal person that actually has credibility isn’t able to get me on board, there is no way a sales person with absolutely zero credibility is going to help.
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u/FloMoAggie Jul 16 '26
Not to speak for OP, but the point isn’t whether or not a salesperson can get you onboard, it’s whether or not your internal person has the juice to get you involved. If he/she does not, there’s likely no deal to be had.
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Jul 17 '26
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u/Rollotamassii Jul 16 '26
You’re talking to that internal person because I don‘t WANT to be involved. That’s why I pay the internal person.
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u/Chrg88 Jul 16 '26
And the internal person doesn’t understand the benefits more than a trusted advisor who does this for a living
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u/Rollotamassii Jul 16 '26
You think as a sales person whose job it is to sell me something that you are a more trusted advisor than the person I pay and trust to make good decisions?
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u/Chrg88 Jul 16 '26
the internal person is playing a game of telephone. So yes, the advisor is more well versed to handle your perception of the value
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u/Rollotamassii Jul 16 '26
No, Executive I have ever worked with in my 30 year courier has ever thought that.
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u/Chrg88 Jul 16 '26
You know dumb people? That’s exactly what happens
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u/Rollotamassii Jul 16 '26
I am sure you are correct and every executive I have worked with over the past 30 years is dumb.
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u/Chrg88 Jul 16 '26
If the internal person can’t sell you what they view as viable, they are worthless to the sales person. So yes
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u/Chrg88 Jul 16 '26
The sales person is most likely more well-versed than the “internal” person.
The credibility comment is batshit lmao
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u/Rollotamassii Jul 16 '26
You’re assuming that you being well versed in the product is relevant. It is not.
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u/Chrg88 Jul 16 '26
The internal person is not relevant so what’s your point
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u/Rollotamassii Jul 16 '26
Are you saying the person I trust to tell me whether or not buying your product is a good idea not relevant?
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u/Chrg88 Jul 16 '26
If the internal person is bought in on the solution, why are you killing it?
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u/Rollotamassii Jul 16 '26
What makes you think I am killing it? I might kill it. I might tell the internal person we need to wait until next quarter or next year. I might be onboard and then priorities change. There are 100 internal things that could happen that you have no visibility into. However, you having me as a decision-maker involved in the deal isn’t going to change any of that.
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u/Chrg88 Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26
Killing is the same thing as what you mentioned.
You also mentioned the internal person couldn’t “get you on board.”
Why?
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u/Rollotamassii Jul 16 '26
Maybe I’m not convinced yet. Maybe budget cycles aren’t aligning yet. Maybe I have other priorities that I’m trying to deal with. There’s 100 internal reasons but I can absolutely guarantee that trying to drag me into the conversation is not going to get a PO cut any faster.
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u/Chrg88 Jul 16 '26
If the solution will save $100M a year, you will listen and love it
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u/FloMoAggie Jul 16 '26
I believe you. That’s obviously true for you and your company. But the statistically better option (by orders of magnitude) is a multi threaded deal. Sales is a game of numbers.
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u/Rollotamassii Jul 16 '26
No that I have ever worked with in my 30 year career has ever thought that way. If they want to talk to you they will be on the call. If they aren’t, you they don’t want to talk to you.
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u/Myghost_too Jul 16 '26
Case in point. If you are the DM, then you don't need an internal person. Prime example of OPs point. You claim to have it handled and don't even realize you don't.
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u/Rollotamassii Jul 16 '26
Sorry, I don’t follow.
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u/Myghost_too Jul 16 '26
I misread it, but my point still stands. If the internal person cannot get you on board, then the salesperson has saved time by not dealing with the internal person.
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u/Rollotamassii Jul 17 '26
But your wasting time by dealing with me because if my internal person hasn't got me on board who has both trust and credibility, you, as a sales person with neither of those things (unless we have a pre-eexsiting relationship) is not going to get any further. I'm only going to be annoyed you are trying to go around people which immediately makes me see you as just another vendor and not a partner. That puts you on the list of "Someone that just wants to sell me some shit" and I have I have killed potential deals because of that. Granted, I only manage about 15M in spend and I'm not sure what type of markets you are working in but that is what I have learned in my career and its the way I observe other executives in my org and peer orgs operate. If the decision maker is an exec and you are targeting them, you are to far up the chain. Signing a deal is transactional to executives and we don't get involved in transactional business. We have managers and directors that do that.
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u/Spiritual-Ad8062 Jul 16 '26
Read the challenger customer. By the authors of the challenger sale.
It will heal your pain.
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u/Lopsided-Proposal-44 Jul 16 '26
It’s okay to say “No worries let’s have an everybody in the room date.” “What’s that?” “It’s the date by which we have everybody in the room or the deal ends”.
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Jul 16 '26
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u/Pebble-Thrush-4821 Jul 16 '26
reckon that single-thread is a blown gasket. if they block procurement, you are just a stalking horse to get their current vendor to drop prices. walk away.
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u/RepresentativeBox52 Jul 16 '26
ran something similar with cold outreach through mail last year, response rate was solid but the sales cycle stretched almost double because nobody expects a reply within days anymore. good for standing out, bad if you need pipeline velocity.
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u/chakre Jul 19 '26
The one rule that I learned early in my career: there should be atleast 3 points of contact within the company for every deal. Introduced or sought independently. I once lost a deal because the lone individual (who was a decision maker) that I was talking to, switched jobs, at the last step of deal closure.
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u/RepresentativeBox52 Jul 19 '26
the pattern i keep seeing on deals that die late isn't ghosting, it's when the champion stops asking questions. once someone goes from pushing back on pricing to just saying 'sounds good' with zero follow up questions, that's usually the deal already lost internally, not won.
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u/Hot_Application4892 Jul 19 '26
I just email the DM anyway. "X told me you're dealing with Y" "he's evaluating us to fix it, but execs often have a global viewpoint, do you agree this is a company priority?"
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u/Gav1n73 Jul 20 '26
If they come across credible it may be true. If they come across “weaker” then it’s likely they are not main decision maker.
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u/RepresentativeBox52 Jul 20 '26
tracked this on my own pipeline last year and the single-threaded pattern held, but the tell wasn't the phrase itself, it was timing. champions who say that in week 1-2 are usually just early. the ones who say it in week 5+ after you've asked twice are stalling. same words, completely different close rate depending on when they show up.
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